Categories > Original > Sci-Fi > Farmville
Third
I can not sleep. I will not sleep. I will not sleep, lest my next words are of dreams. The same dreams that have taken the lines of my journals. Countless journals in fact. Or they would be, had I not taken one day to count them. I never finished, I just kept counting. Counting forever, the journals. The pile seemed, no, was endless. Journal after journal, all of them the exact same leatherbound, with my name on them, in a scrawl that only I can read. John Winston. John Winston. John Whinston. Over, over, over again. Though, I don't know that this wasn't just another dream as well.
It's all starting to blend together.
I will instead splash water on my face. Burn myself with my ciggarette. Take a cold shower. And as the evening transfers to the morning, and I'm still sitting on the couch, unable and unwilling to return to the bed in my mothers' room, for fear of falling asleep, and for fear of remembering what I have done. That room will always stay a reminder of what I've done.
Lu is reclined in the chair next to the couch, snoring. She has to have the television on to sleep, whilst Tom must have total darkness. He also needs a pump to keep him breathing, or else he'll die in his sleep. A sad condition, though nothing can be done of it. Science has only come so far, ironically enough.
Finding that I might be going deaf or insane, I can't hear the t.v. anymore. I've started to forget it's on. Instead, I hear tick tick tick again. The clock is loud as hell. Louder than whatever movie, something of an old award winning actor, is on. I can't understand it. It's a small thing. Sort of in the form of a snowglobe, actually. The clock dangles in the direct center of it, and while the cogs inside rotate the three hands - second, minute, hour - it also turns the floor around every second, and these weird things, they have my brain completely twisted, stick up from the floor. They rotate as well, and they're just two sort of strings that that twirl around eachother until meeting back at the top of themselves. Everything is rotating, and it makes my head spin.
Upon my thoughts devouring me, as I lay in place, I decide the best thing is to leave. My beliefs are that being alone in the dark causes paranoia. So I get dressed. A pair of pants, the once navy denim worn to an almost white, with a small hole in it, which holds in its stitching still the memory of when I stabbed myself with a shovel, three winters ago. I don't remember exactly why I did it, however. The wound has healed, but it was deep enough that a scar was left in place. The scar fits into the hole left in the pants when I wear them, so I've grown favorable. Another plain v-neck. The first one had a stain on it, and I threw it away. These are all we wearunder our uniforms at Center, and on deck, so I really don't ever have any other clothes. Or shirts at least. A jacket, zip up, though the zipper itself has fallen off quite a while ago, and the sleeves have been torn at the wrist because of my constant biting. It doesn't matter, the arms are to long, and they dangle over my hands anyways. Lastly, I put on boots. Brown hiking boots, with dry, tight laces. The sound of my tying them always splits my ears. Instead, I leave the laces dangling from the holes midway through the boot, which leads right above my ankle as it is.
My fingers touch the handle of the front door, and my trying to be as silent as possible leads only to more noise being caused, my focus no longer diverted towards everything, but solely on the light and hollow knob. I hit a soda box with the idle heel of my boot, and nine no name brand sodas tumble out. I still the sodas with my sole, doing my best not to trip on them as they roll under me, whilst simultaneously forcing the cold and rusted metal hinge out of the hollowed shell, and opening the door, as fast, though as controlled, as I can. In effect to this, the creak that plagues the door falls behind smoothly. At my first step outside, I shudder. The cold is more sharp than I thought, and I feel remorse for not bringing a warmer jacket on my suspension. The planks of the deck creak, no matter they be the few decade old ones, nor the newer, and obviously so, due to the color they've retained.
The mosquitoes are biting. They have been since spring arrived, and it's a good reason to feel a well amount of sorrow that the winter had to take it's leave, and something to look forward to in the three months until it arrives once more. Mosquitoes don't enjoy the cold. This night air they can stand, though. The moon looks to be snow white, and though not full, but instead a gibbon, I am still brought back to thoughts of werewolves and other mystical myths. I relive good memories, though for only a moment, until the nostalgia passes, and I remember the task at hand.
Hands in my pockets, hood hiding my head, I take long, light steps over the deck, to the opposite end and to the steps, at which point I dismount. I glance in wonder as they don't creak. It gives me an eerie feeling that I didn't have about the night before. Suddenly, the werewolves come back, in a non-nostalgic, but instead creepy way. I think of mysterious things that could happen on such a farm, out in the middle of nowhere, with dirt roads and crops. Thought of rebellious attack comes to mind, and I surely feel the cold hit the back of my neck.
Standing, I stare towards the parking angle. I hear grass, and then dirt rumbling. I pay no mind, figuring it the wind or bugs, maybe a prairie dog stumbled across my path, saw me, and scurried away in natural fear. I keep my eyes on the ninety degrees. On the corner, where the two planks meet. All of my focus keeps on it, on the screws that hold it together. I think I am hullucinating at first glance, though it couldn't be more there than it is. That there really could be nothing on them. That it's just my imagination. That it isn't possible for two rusted screws to have a complete image on each. I stare, my jaw slowly dropping, and the wind forcing itself down my throat. Then across the second screw, across the second plank, and across the ground before them, I see something, and the only corresponding word is four letters long.
I see a shadow. Then a second one disembodying itself from the first.
I look to my immediate left, and shut my mouth, as two coyotes snarl at me. A rare sight, seeing as though they're extinct, and have been since 2114, when their obliteration was sought out by millions because of their direct defiling to a now destroyed "American" landmark. I'm caught dead in my tracks. I don't know what to do. They're desperately hungry, that much can be seen, and I'm definitely an object capable of digestion. I can't help but stare the dogs down, into their core. I see the eyes of something. Not a beast. Not a monster. They aren't those eyes.
They aren't those eyes.
Their snarl doesn't cease, but instead one takes a step forward, and gives a small huff. I take a small step back, an inch of give, and my face takes from blank to worried. They're going to eat me? My thoughts, sitting unwell, How does that even work? I think of the morning, fresh, and the sun rearing its head from behind the hills. Tom wakes up, takes his shower, and get's ready. He jumps while eating his cereal, which he does while checking the temperature and weather forecast, as Gypsy barks at the door. Scurrying to put his shoes on, he lets her out as he falls over on his back, course of hobbling on one leg. When Tom catches up to the dog, he's appalled to find her sniffing one of the many different piles of ripped flesh and bone that are strewed across the gravel. So much so that he goes inside to call the police.
That's my skin, all over the lawn.
The police will be surprised. Forensics will point to the impossible. Coyotes? In this day and age? They'll come back a month after my death with an exterminator, and they'll search around the farm within a twenty mile radius. The exterminator will find two coyotes sleeping in a patch of grass not more than twenty feet away from the house. He'll kill them before they wake, then call the cops over. Carcasses will be burned, and so will all the area they were expected to have been. That means the whole farm. Tom and Lu will dissapear, and everyone will forget about them. We'll all be buried next to eachother though. Somewhere in an ocean.
Somewhere in the great deep blue.
Coyote number one takes a step forward, and I give an inch. By this moment I've figured that I'm dead. That I'll go out fighting, and then be eaten. I step back, discouraged. My fists are up, clenched like they're ready to box, but I couldn't be more afraid. The second coyote sort of barks, in that coyotes don't bark, but it did in fact yelp, and the first one jumps at me, literally. Between the choices of lunging forward and hitting a coyote in the face, and falling backward and letting a coyote land on me before it eats my face, I opt for the former. As I tumble to the dust, I pick something up off the deck, while also knocking the back of my head against one of the planks, in a failed attempt to pick myself up.
"You're such a cluts, John."
I feel the sting against my hands, and open my eyes to humor their watering. As I do, I'm startled by two rows of sharp teeth, and hungry eyes, staring me down. Recollecting myself, I scurry out from under the coyote, a cloud of dust settling about me. It is then that I gather it is dead. Or dying at the least. The item I had picked up off the deck-a pocket shovel-is shoved through the canines dirty coat, and straight into its' abdomen. My hands, filthy, are swiped against my pants, and though the sting is rather annoying, I deal. The second coyote is still looking me, top to bottom.
"Go. Get."
It raises it's head, it's face expressionless. I take a step forward, shove my foot into the ground, agressively.
"I said get!"
I drag the first coyote under the deck, and the second one jogs off. Fuck, I think, I hope it doesn't shit in the crop or something.
*
There's a spot, a little further behind the house than the third pig barn, which is now used to store farm equipment. The spot isn't a secret, it's a dump. It's a giant hill, and below the hill are old car parts, sometimes there are even whole frames, and the grass there covers a good five feet or so. Then, on the top of the hill, there is a ridge, a split in the ground. I am above this hole, staring in. I don't feel exactly right, and I can't help but cry a whole lot. It's weird, because I'm staring at dead pigs. It had started when I got teary eyes from the smell. The smell of maggots growing in eye sockets, and the smell of flesh rotting. The smell of flys, inside and outside. The smell of snouts that no longer sniff.
Now I think a bit more consciously, if that makes any sense. I think, This is where they throw dead things. Dead pigs. Dead coyotes? Dead people? Vivid dreams of my death resurface. I kneel down, and hang my legs off of the edge, into the open grave. I look up, and see that it's still pitch dark. It doesn't feel like it is. It's never pitch dark out here, on the border anyways. The sun is usually up. I don't see pitch dark. I see everything bright, as if it were the middle of the day. I don't know exactly why.
I'm having a good time, dealing with my near death experience, when I feel the warmth from the back of my head, and I feel it pour down my spine, before I fall into a hole full of multiple month old dead pigs.
*
"Are you two going out or something?"
I rubbed the back of my head, feeling for the fresh bump granted from the bottom of Gray's lunch tray. She always had to be so mean to me for no reason.
She scoffed at Parker, "No!"
I put my head in my arms, "Why would you think that, Louis?"
"Well, you're always so...friendly?"
"We sort of went out once," Gray blushed. She's much to obvious about it.
"I can't go out with her, I'm her subordinate. You are too, Louis. You should respect your commanding officer a bit more."
Her eyes opened wide, and after suspending him for his disrespect, the two argued. But they argued playfully. I was still stuck looking amongst the hall, at all the other troops. They get to fly, oh woe, why don't I? I knew the answer though. I have to protect the prime, I huffed, No flying for me.
"You know, Paul said we get our first mission this Monday. He said we'll be going into inland towns, probably up north." Michael shares with the rest of the table.
"Where do you think we'll be going?" Monty asked, and the whole table looked to Gray.
"Well..." She looked nervous. "Well, I don't have any clue. Why would I know?"
Everyone sighed. They were excited to be off MAFLO, I could tell just by their breath. Come Monday, they'd be off. They'd be back in civilization. After all, the prime didn't like flying.
I can not sleep. I will not sleep. I will not sleep, lest my next words are of dreams. The same dreams that have taken the lines of my journals. Countless journals in fact. Or they would be, had I not taken one day to count them. I never finished, I just kept counting. Counting forever, the journals. The pile seemed, no, was endless. Journal after journal, all of them the exact same leatherbound, with my name on them, in a scrawl that only I can read. John Winston. John Winston. John Whinston. Over, over, over again. Though, I don't know that this wasn't just another dream as well.
It's all starting to blend together.
I will instead splash water on my face. Burn myself with my ciggarette. Take a cold shower. And as the evening transfers to the morning, and I'm still sitting on the couch, unable and unwilling to return to the bed in my mothers' room, for fear of falling asleep, and for fear of remembering what I have done. That room will always stay a reminder of what I've done.
Lu is reclined in the chair next to the couch, snoring. She has to have the television on to sleep, whilst Tom must have total darkness. He also needs a pump to keep him breathing, or else he'll die in his sleep. A sad condition, though nothing can be done of it. Science has only come so far, ironically enough.
Finding that I might be going deaf or insane, I can't hear the t.v. anymore. I've started to forget it's on. Instead, I hear tick tick tick again. The clock is loud as hell. Louder than whatever movie, something of an old award winning actor, is on. I can't understand it. It's a small thing. Sort of in the form of a snowglobe, actually. The clock dangles in the direct center of it, and while the cogs inside rotate the three hands - second, minute, hour - it also turns the floor around every second, and these weird things, they have my brain completely twisted, stick up from the floor. They rotate as well, and they're just two sort of strings that that twirl around eachother until meeting back at the top of themselves. Everything is rotating, and it makes my head spin.
Upon my thoughts devouring me, as I lay in place, I decide the best thing is to leave. My beliefs are that being alone in the dark causes paranoia. So I get dressed. A pair of pants, the once navy denim worn to an almost white, with a small hole in it, which holds in its stitching still the memory of when I stabbed myself with a shovel, three winters ago. I don't remember exactly why I did it, however. The wound has healed, but it was deep enough that a scar was left in place. The scar fits into the hole left in the pants when I wear them, so I've grown favorable. Another plain v-neck. The first one had a stain on it, and I threw it away. These are all we wearunder our uniforms at Center, and on deck, so I really don't ever have any other clothes. Or shirts at least. A jacket, zip up, though the zipper itself has fallen off quite a while ago, and the sleeves have been torn at the wrist because of my constant biting. It doesn't matter, the arms are to long, and they dangle over my hands anyways. Lastly, I put on boots. Brown hiking boots, with dry, tight laces. The sound of my tying them always splits my ears. Instead, I leave the laces dangling from the holes midway through the boot, which leads right above my ankle as it is.
My fingers touch the handle of the front door, and my trying to be as silent as possible leads only to more noise being caused, my focus no longer diverted towards everything, but solely on the light and hollow knob. I hit a soda box with the idle heel of my boot, and nine no name brand sodas tumble out. I still the sodas with my sole, doing my best not to trip on them as they roll under me, whilst simultaneously forcing the cold and rusted metal hinge out of the hollowed shell, and opening the door, as fast, though as controlled, as I can. In effect to this, the creak that plagues the door falls behind smoothly. At my first step outside, I shudder. The cold is more sharp than I thought, and I feel remorse for not bringing a warmer jacket on my suspension. The planks of the deck creak, no matter they be the few decade old ones, nor the newer, and obviously so, due to the color they've retained.
The mosquitoes are biting. They have been since spring arrived, and it's a good reason to feel a well amount of sorrow that the winter had to take it's leave, and something to look forward to in the three months until it arrives once more. Mosquitoes don't enjoy the cold. This night air they can stand, though. The moon looks to be snow white, and though not full, but instead a gibbon, I am still brought back to thoughts of werewolves and other mystical myths. I relive good memories, though for only a moment, until the nostalgia passes, and I remember the task at hand.
Hands in my pockets, hood hiding my head, I take long, light steps over the deck, to the opposite end and to the steps, at which point I dismount. I glance in wonder as they don't creak. It gives me an eerie feeling that I didn't have about the night before. Suddenly, the werewolves come back, in a non-nostalgic, but instead creepy way. I think of mysterious things that could happen on such a farm, out in the middle of nowhere, with dirt roads and crops. Thought of rebellious attack comes to mind, and I surely feel the cold hit the back of my neck.
Standing, I stare towards the parking angle. I hear grass, and then dirt rumbling. I pay no mind, figuring it the wind or bugs, maybe a prairie dog stumbled across my path, saw me, and scurried away in natural fear. I keep my eyes on the ninety degrees. On the corner, where the two planks meet. All of my focus keeps on it, on the screws that hold it together. I think I am hullucinating at first glance, though it couldn't be more there than it is. That there really could be nothing on them. That it's just my imagination. That it isn't possible for two rusted screws to have a complete image on each. I stare, my jaw slowly dropping, and the wind forcing itself down my throat. Then across the second screw, across the second plank, and across the ground before them, I see something, and the only corresponding word is four letters long.
I see a shadow. Then a second one disembodying itself from the first.
I look to my immediate left, and shut my mouth, as two coyotes snarl at me. A rare sight, seeing as though they're extinct, and have been since 2114, when their obliteration was sought out by millions because of their direct defiling to a now destroyed "American" landmark. I'm caught dead in my tracks. I don't know what to do. They're desperately hungry, that much can be seen, and I'm definitely an object capable of digestion. I can't help but stare the dogs down, into their core. I see the eyes of something. Not a beast. Not a monster. They aren't those eyes.
They aren't those eyes.
Their snarl doesn't cease, but instead one takes a step forward, and gives a small huff. I take a small step back, an inch of give, and my face takes from blank to worried. They're going to eat me? My thoughts, sitting unwell, How does that even work? I think of the morning, fresh, and the sun rearing its head from behind the hills. Tom wakes up, takes his shower, and get's ready. He jumps while eating his cereal, which he does while checking the temperature and weather forecast, as Gypsy barks at the door. Scurrying to put his shoes on, he lets her out as he falls over on his back, course of hobbling on one leg. When Tom catches up to the dog, he's appalled to find her sniffing one of the many different piles of ripped flesh and bone that are strewed across the gravel. So much so that he goes inside to call the police.
That's my skin, all over the lawn.
The police will be surprised. Forensics will point to the impossible. Coyotes? In this day and age? They'll come back a month after my death with an exterminator, and they'll search around the farm within a twenty mile radius. The exterminator will find two coyotes sleeping in a patch of grass not more than twenty feet away from the house. He'll kill them before they wake, then call the cops over. Carcasses will be burned, and so will all the area they were expected to have been. That means the whole farm. Tom and Lu will dissapear, and everyone will forget about them. We'll all be buried next to eachother though. Somewhere in an ocean.
Somewhere in the great deep blue.
Coyote number one takes a step forward, and I give an inch. By this moment I've figured that I'm dead. That I'll go out fighting, and then be eaten. I step back, discouraged. My fists are up, clenched like they're ready to box, but I couldn't be more afraid. The second coyote sort of barks, in that coyotes don't bark, but it did in fact yelp, and the first one jumps at me, literally. Between the choices of lunging forward and hitting a coyote in the face, and falling backward and letting a coyote land on me before it eats my face, I opt for the former. As I tumble to the dust, I pick something up off the deck, while also knocking the back of my head against one of the planks, in a failed attempt to pick myself up.
"You're such a cluts, John."
I feel the sting against my hands, and open my eyes to humor their watering. As I do, I'm startled by two rows of sharp teeth, and hungry eyes, staring me down. Recollecting myself, I scurry out from under the coyote, a cloud of dust settling about me. It is then that I gather it is dead. Or dying at the least. The item I had picked up off the deck-a pocket shovel-is shoved through the canines dirty coat, and straight into its' abdomen. My hands, filthy, are swiped against my pants, and though the sting is rather annoying, I deal. The second coyote is still looking me, top to bottom.
"Go. Get."
It raises it's head, it's face expressionless. I take a step forward, shove my foot into the ground, agressively.
"I said get!"
I drag the first coyote under the deck, and the second one jogs off. Fuck, I think, I hope it doesn't shit in the crop or something.
*
There's a spot, a little further behind the house than the third pig barn, which is now used to store farm equipment. The spot isn't a secret, it's a dump. It's a giant hill, and below the hill are old car parts, sometimes there are even whole frames, and the grass there covers a good five feet or so. Then, on the top of the hill, there is a ridge, a split in the ground. I am above this hole, staring in. I don't feel exactly right, and I can't help but cry a whole lot. It's weird, because I'm staring at dead pigs. It had started when I got teary eyes from the smell. The smell of maggots growing in eye sockets, and the smell of flesh rotting. The smell of flys, inside and outside. The smell of snouts that no longer sniff.
Now I think a bit more consciously, if that makes any sense. I think, This is where they throw dead things. Dead pigs. Dead coyotes? Dead people? Vivid dreams of my death resurface. I kneel down, and hang my legs off of the edge, into the open grave. I look up, and see that it's still pitch dark. It doesn't feel like it is. It's never pitch dark out here, on the border anyways. The sun is usually up. I don't see pitch dark. I see everything bright, as if it were the middle of the day. I don't know exactly why.
I'm having a good time, dealing with my near death experience, when I feel the warmth from the back of my head, and I feel it pour down my spine, before I fall into a hole full of multiple month old dead pigs.
*
"Are you two going out or something?"
I rubbed the back of my head, feeling for the fresh bump granted from the bottom of Gray's lunch tray. She always had to be so mean to me for no reason.
She scoffed at Parker, "No!"
I put my head in my arms, "Why would you think that, Louis?"
"Well, you're always so...friendly?"
"We sort of went out once," Gray blushed. She's much to obvious about it.
"I can't go out with her, I'm her subordinate. You are too, Louis. You should respect your commanding officer a bit more."
Her eyes opened wide, and after suspending him for his disrespect, the two argued. But they argued playfully. I was still stuck looking amongst the hall, at all the other troops. They get to fly, oh woe, why don't I? I knew the answer though. I have to protect the prime, I huffed, No flying for me.
"You know, Paul said we get our first mission this Monday. He said we'll be going into inland towns, probably up north." Michael shares with the rest of the table.
"Where do you think we'll be going?" Monty asked, and the whole table looked to Gray.
"Well..." She looked nervous. "Well, I don't have any clue. Why would I know?"
Everyone sighed. They were excited to be off MAFLO, I could tell just by their breath. Come Monday, they'd be off. They'd be back in civilization. After all, the prime didn't like flying.
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